


Meet Me in the Midst: Lock and Key

by DontMindtheReticence



Series: Meet Me in the Midst [4]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Eventual Romance, F/M, Magic, POV Draco Malfoy, Slow Build
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-21
Updated: 2021-02-21
Packaged: 2021-03-18 20:48:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,191
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29615217
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DontMindtheReticence/pseuds/DontMindtheReticence
Summary: The fourth chapter of "Meet Me in the Midst". Sorry, I didn't know how to post this chapter by chapter, so they come in parts.The adventure for answers continues as Draco faces the reality of his prospects on discovering them. Against everything in him, Draco recruits the help of quite possibly the last person on Earth, but desperation comes first. Y/N comes first. If that means compromising the values passed down to him and his own state of comfort, so be it. He's sat in the dark long enough...
Relationships: Draco Malfoy/Reader, Draco Malfoy/You
Series: Meet Me in the Midst [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2015317
Kudos: 6





	Meet Me in the Midst: Lock and Key

**Author's Note:**

> DISCLAIMER: I do not own the characters named in this chapter. They belong to J.K. Rowling's "Harry Potter" series.

** Chapter Four **

****

There she sat. Hermione Granger, nose pointed down as she let herself be captured by her book. Draco stood behind her, far enough away to not attract suspicion, but close enough to note her transfixion. For a moment, he let his mind wander to the small irony of tearing away her focus much like she had done to him yesterday. Today, he hoped, their interaction would have a far better ending.

He collected his breath, straightened his posture, and set out towards her, bitterly ignoring the aggravated voices telling him to turn back around. In truth, they’d begun their roaring the minute he decided to elicit Granger’s help. By now, however, as his steps took him closer to her, both their tone and volume had increased exponentially in harshness and irrevocable disgust.

All of it, interestingly enough, in a voice not unlike his father’s as he had heard it so many times before.

Far before he was ready, his feet had landed him by her side and though he did so silently, his presence was by no means unnoticed. She craned her head up to find the insufferable boy standing still to her right; an indiscernible, live energy widening his eyes ever so slightly. She rolled her own in apathy and turned back to her book.

“What do you want, Draco?” Her voice quiet and strengthened by indifference.

Draco found he could not immediately begin moving his tongue nor could he conjure the cords within his throat to begin their strumming in the creation of his voice. Everything felt dry and heavy, burdened and overpowered by both anxiety and dread.

When he did not speak, Hermione looked back up to him quizzically, studying his soured demeanor. Though something was different about the sourness this morning. It wasn’t merely contemptuous, no. If she wasn’t mistaken, she thought she could detect fear in his eyes now, brightening them as if to signal his distress.

“Are you alright?” Though her voice may not have shown the minuscule concern she held for him at that moment, it was there nonetheless and accompanied with a large presence of curiosity.

He cleared his throat then, and swallowed hard, desperately willing for his mind to bring back the words he had practiced.

Hermione took another muted beat from him to speak, “I’ll ask again, do you need something? Your silence is starting to make me uncomfortable.”

Anxious to not let the moment flit away, Draco nodded and croaked out, “Yes, I do. Need something, that is.”

She stared at him, waiting for his supposed request. Receiving none, she asked firmly with tightly furrowed brows, “And that would be?”

Draco coughed once more, this time glancing fearfully at the spaces around them for peering eyes.

“Are you going to keep standing there or are you going to tell me why you’ve sought me out?” Hermione questioned with clear irritation.

Years of condescension thrown at him by his father in view of Draco’s many questions surrounding his supposed soulmate connection came rushing back to his memory, strengthening his mind’s goal.

“Do you really know the library as well as you say you do?” Draco responded quickly.

Hermione blinked once in surprise before recomposing herself, “Up to today I have been successful in finding what I am looking for upon these shelves.”

“Do you think you could find a book that is not sure to exist based solely on a brief description of what it may contain?”

Hermione couldn’t hold back her scoff, “That depends entirely on the brief description, I suppose.”

The name of the story so familiar to him raced to the forefront of his mind when its trail became obstructed with the circumstances of Hermione’s childhood. He fought back the instinct to roll his eyes. Of course, he would have to explain it to her. The one person who had offered him the slightest bit of hope in his journey for answers and she didn’t even have to fundamental basic knowledge of what he was involved in.

“Growing up a—” abandoning the derogatory term in favor of a greater purpose, “—a muggle-born means you likely wouldn’t have heard of a certain tale I’m researching called, ‘The Two Lost Souls.’”

“You’re right, I haven’t heard of it.”

Draco shifted on his feet, desperately trying to shove away the jitters he was beginning to feel now, “It’s a story my mum used to tell me about a witch and a wizard born at the exact same time in two separate locations on the Earth but connected nonetheless through a _rare_ magical bond.”

She watched as his eyes lit up, the magic of his world starting its take of control.

“Now, through this bond, they were able to hear each other’s thoughts since the day they were born. Each thought giving them clues on who the other was until finally, they found one another. The bond would then unite them together till the day they die.”

“Sounds like quite the epic.”

“Yes, well, I was reminded of it recently and it brought up all sorts of questions that have been pestering me for far too long. I was hoping there was a book somewhere in here that had anything to do with the myth that would answer some of these questions.”

“Myth?” Hermione suddenly questioned, “I thought you said it was a fairytale.”

Draco began to stutter at once, “I did and it is, though there are the few…” his father’s words regrettably settling upon his tongue, “… _naïve_ enough to believe it’s a real thing that only happens to a very select few.”

“I see.” Hermione closed her book and turned to face him, “And you’ve been searching through the entire library for a book about this fairytale just to satisfy a few curiosities?”

Draco huffed defensively, “Yes. What would be the issue with that?”

Shaking her head, Hermione answered with full honesty, “I don’t believe there is one. Your behavior just made your search seem like more of a serious matter.”

“Gaining back a clear mind before the year-end exams _is_ a serious matter.” His voice coming back quick and hardened.

“Of course, well,” She sighed in pondering where they might start their search, “I don’t remember coming across the title you mentioned, but I do know of a few sections that we could take a look at.”

A slight look of astonishment that she could agree to help him took over his expression before he has the time to subdue them.

She halted her motivation at his surprise, not entirely sure of what it meant, “That is if you still want my help.”

Draco cleared his throat, feigning a sudden disinterest in her skills, “What I want is my clarity back. If you can help me get that, then I would be—”

“Grateful?” Hermione inserted quickly.

A scowl fit itself on the curvature of his mouth, “Or _something_ along those lines. No need to put a name to it when we can get a move on.”

Hermione worked hard to keep her satisfied smile from pulling at her lips. Instead, she stood up, placed the book she had found back in its place, and turned to Draco, “Follow me, then.”

_A couple of hours and a few sections later…_

“I thought you said you knew where to find this book.” Draco fussed, plopping down into a chair in defeat.

Hermione sighed and returned yet another ineffectual text, “All I said was that I knew of a few places we could look. I never made any guarantees.”

Draco scoffed and averted his eyes from hers. A blind refusal to give her something as minimally polite as maintaining eye contact becoming his new motivation.

Hermione rolled her eyes at the temper tantrum and turned around to look at the shelves around them.

Placing her hands on her hips, she began to wonder aloud, “Outside the sections you say you’ve already checked, there’s really only one other place in the library that could possibly hold such a book as the one you’re looking for.”

“And where would that be?” Voice still pestering, the seated position still dramatically flared-up.

“Well, that’s beyond our reach.”

His attention was brought onto her back as she turned around to face him, answering his unspoken question, “The restricted section.”

Draco let his eyes instinctively look off into the direction of the privately kept part of the library, “I’d need a professor’s permission to get in there.”

“Yes, you would. Though, you’d be hard-pressed to find one who would hand out a permit on the basis of merely satisfying one’s curiosity. Trust me, I’ve tried.”

Despite his position of the one in need of her help, his words came out heavily laced in impatience and doubt, “Then, what do you suggest I do?”

“I don’t see there is anything else to be done. If the book is being held at Hogwarts, it’s certainly not in any place it should be for a student to find. Therefore, it would have to be held in the restricted section. Though, that begs the question: Why would a fairytale be placed under such lock-and-key?”

Draco visibly deflated once again, and Hermione found herself asking another question. All of this work and obvious disappointment for what? A trip back down memory lane? What could Draco possibly want with a children’s story? The possibility that there was more to his motivations that he withheld came alight in her mind and she looked back onto him for more clues.

Needing to test his reactions, she offered him a hopeful response, “Still, it won’t hurt to try. You may have better luck than I did.”

His signature disdain came forth in the rolling of his eyes, not exactly a surprise to Hermione. She had begun to retract her instincts that something else was afoot when his entire demeanor changed.

Slowly, he began to sit up; the look upon his face stark with what looked to be uncertainty. Her analysis of his expression was, in fact, not very far off from the truth.

_She’s coming back_. Draco thought to himself as he came to recognize the outline of Y/N’s presence walking through the mist and fog of his tortured thoughts.

Tortured first with the utter disappointment of another failure coupled secondly with the conflicting agony of the company he was sharing. Incoming was the third and most looming device of his unhappiness. It had been stored away so as to not distract from today’s adventure, but she had brought it back. Y/N had brought it all back.

She heard him, and it hurt her. That fact had cultivated an unfamiliar, sickening feeling that resided in his stomach like a poorly cooked chicken. Anyone else in his troupe of admirers would’ve cheered him on for the way he had spoken to Granger. In fact, they would’ve piled on if he allowed it, but not Y/N. Her reaction had rested on the far opposite side of the spectrum. 

He recognized the weight on her chest as he accompanied her memories of his degradation and he had felt the swirling tornado of doubts and questions that wreaked havoc on the landscape of her inner peace. And now she was coming back before he’d given himself the chance to let her pain settle in, before he’d taken the opportunity to think on what had happened.

Therefore, what he was left feeling as her shape became clearer, was peace turned to fear. Joy turned to dread, and marvel turned into an inescapable desire to run and hide. But there was no turning away. Even if that was a possibility he could utilize, he wouldn’t. Not now. Not when he was this desperate for her light.

_Paper. She’s holding a piece of paper._

Her handwriting was scrawled onto a yellow post-it that lay in her hands, moving towards a corkboard. A densely packed corkboard at that with similar colored paper randomly connected by pieces of string fastened with colorful push pins.

Then came her voice. A haunting tune in all its beauty, teasing him with feelings of serenity.

_Looking down at her note, she read what she’d written_ , _“Remember what Hector said! See Draco as a whole and through the lens of love and understanding.”_

_“I have a feeling some days are going to be harder than others to remember this one.” She thought to herself, pinning the reminder in the empty space centered on her board._

_“Love and understanding…” Y/N whispered, taking a step away to look at what she had compiled._

_“…love and understanding...” Her voice became quieter as she repeated his words._

_“…love and understanding...” The words faint and hardly discernable until they were no longer there._

His reflexes acted quickly, far swifter than his probing memory of where he was and who was still looking at him. Gathering his paper and quill, Draco wrote down the mantra she had written and begun reciting. Once done, he closed his eyes and tried his best to remember any details that had been revealed on the board she had organized.

_A series of numbers starting from 10 and ending at 17. Chapter numbers next to them. Chapter 1 next to 10, 11, and 12, chapter 2 with 13, 3 with 14, 4 with 15, 5 with 16, and 6 with 17._

Desperately, he searched his memory for the words placed next to the numbers. It all started to look muddled and blurry, and very few stood out.

_Harmony, Sense, and Bridge._ That was it. All that he could carry away from what was probably the most revealing thought she had ever given him.

“What are you writing?” Hermione suddenly asked, reminding him of his present. She had wrestled with the thought of interrupting his process and simply letting him be, favorably sticking to the latter until minutes had passed and his eyes had remained shut tight.

Instinctively, he flinched and stared wide-eyed back at her as if she’d never been there at all. What first came as shock at the sight of her quickly turned into fear simultaneously morphing into anger.

“None of your business, Granger.” He hurriedly placed his belongings back into his pack and stood up from his seat, “I would thank you for your services if you’d actually been able to help me. Though I suppose your tangent on the restricted section is not entirely useless, I have more important places to be.”

He took a step to walk past her but was stopped momentarily by her voiced anger.

“What? That’s it?”

Draco looked at her, seemingly missing her point, “What more needs to be said? You tried and failed. It’s not a surprise really. You met my expectations, and I don’t see a point in standing here any longer to further prove that point.”

And with that, he was done. In all his forgotten smugness, he was walking away towards the exit and out of Hermione’s sight. Fumes of her irritation heated her face into a fiery red. If she hadn’t been so taken off guard from his earlier vulnerability, she might’ve slapped the pompous, self-righteous ego right off his face.

Instead, all she could do was stew. Well, stew and analyze and there was _a lot_ he had given her to analyze.

* * *

Draco found himself in the unforeseen, lucky position of reaching the Great Hall in time for lunch. It came as no surprise, however, that both Crabbe and Goyle had already settled in nicely, two plates in front of them heaped with the food they were all too quick to devour.

He cringed at the sight and walked past them. Nothing on this earth could compel him to withstand that discomfort when he had so much to think over. He found a seat far enough away from the company of others and sat down.

Once he had filled his plate to his own content, Draco began to ponder over what Granger had said. He trusted her judgment that the restricted section would likely be the last place he could check in the library for the book. Getting access to it, however, seemed too great a hurdle to overcome.

What professor could possibly grant him permission over something so small? Well, small to them. He doubted anyone on staff had the privilege of knowing what he knew. It was, by all accounts, a hopeless feat. And yet, here he was, still considering it as a course of action.

Why? Because even though she was lightyears ahead of him in figuring any of this out, Y/N hadn’t given up her search for answers. His scope into her thoughts today proved that in spite of _her_ doubts and questions, she was pushing forward. While they stood on completely different platforms, Draco couldn’t help but surge forth and do the same. Giving up simply wasn’t an option here.

So, he looked away from the remnants of his meal and looked up to the table of professors. There was one obvious member he could seek for help, but he did not see her now. The ever-eccentric presence of one Professor Trelawney could not be often found in the Great Hall, though that did not come as a great shock. What did surprise Draco was the fact that he was looking for her at all.

His father had done a fine job of prepping him before his arrival to Hogwarts on what he could expect from each of the teachers on staff. Lucius rarely passed out compliments to any of the professors, but when he got onto the topic of Sybill Trelawney, the smile he wore was not one of respect or appreciation.

She was a laughingstock. A crazed bat dressed in tattered old rags and ridiculous jewelry. Her state of mind was questionable at best and her standing as a true seer was complete and utter buffoonery in his father’s eyes. Everyone’s eyes really. Still, the nutty professor would likely be the only one in a position of actually believing Draco’s tale of the great soulmate tale come to reality. The very thought of seeking her help gave him an uncomfortable itch. He needed to explore all other options before allowing himself to stoop to such a low level. 

That was when his eyes landed upon another hopeful, infinitely darker prospect.

Professor Severus Snape.

The man was terrifying, surely, but he had won his father’s respect to a certain degree. Not to mention the fact that he was the head of Slytherin house. The connections alone offered far more comfortable chances. His intact sanity could be an assurance of that.

Settling upon this plan, Draco knew he would need to make some changes to his story. Chasing after a fairytale would never do and it brought the risk of such ridiculousness getting back to his father. He would not have that. No, he needed stronger reasoning for getting into the restricted section. A first-year battling mere introductory courses. However hopeless his cause looked and felt, Draco was left with no other options.

He needed access and Snape was his best chance of gaining it.


End file.
